The only sensible policy is to never let your better players enter the final year of their contract. Even Man City reportedly have this policy, never mind a cash strapped club like ours. If they won’t agree a new contract they are actively managed out of the club, with only one or two exceptions.
Unfortunately too many players (Dunkley, Rothwell, Ledson, Lundstram, Nelson etc, etc) have been allowed to go for reduced or no fees in recent seasons, which has set the tone for others to watch and follow their lead.
£500k would help towards, what everyone says, is extortionate ground rent fees for example. The reality is we have to start generating significant income from transfer fees for our better players when the time comes for them to leave. As I’ve said we have the disadvantage of high ground rent, no income from the stadium, lower attendances, so where is the money going to come from to fund the better players everyone wants?
I disagree that we only stayed up solely because of Nelson. The return of Eastwood, allied to bringing Long in as RB, made the defence much stronger and suddenly Nelson and Dickie found their mojo.
Unfortunately it’s hard to see how we are going to avoid exactly the same scenario with Dickie in 12 months time now unless he surprisingly signs an improved extension to his contract. These are players that should be generating seven figure transfer fees and there is no way our little club can afford to lose that revenue.